Selfless evolution: A new view of human origins

Our ability to cooperate closely with other group members and to suppress cheats means that selection at the group level rather than the individual level has been an exceptionally strong force during human evolution. It may have played a crucial role in shaping both our genes and our culture.

Rare and momentous event

Converging lines of evidence suggest that human genetic evolution represents a major evolutionary transition and one which accounts for our uniqueness among primates. In most primates, members of a group cooperate to a degree, but there is also intense competition within groups for social dominance. In contrast, most extant hunter-gatherer societies are vigilantly egalitarian, suppressing individuals who try to benefit themselves at the expense of others. As we have seen, the suppression of within-group selection is the hallmark of a major transition.

Vigilant egalitarianism probably arose early in human evolution and was a precondition for the other attributes that make us so distinctive as a species. This is an example of gene-culture co-evolution in which it is impossible to say which came first.

Our closest primate relatives are also highly intelligent but in a way that appears predicated on mistrust. In contrast, human intelligence appears to be based on trust among members of a group, making shared awareness and coordination of activities advantageous for so many generations that they are now instinctive in our species, as developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello has argued. Even dogs, which have been co-evolving with humans for tens of thousands of years, surpass most primates with respect to adaptations based on trust (Science, vol

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